


Gerda and the Snow Queen

by wintersky216



Category: Frozen (2013), Sneedronningen | The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-03 22:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12156522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersky216/pseuds/wintersky216
Summary: Queen Elsa was a kind and generous ruler, loved by all, but it's been five years since she mysteriously vanished. Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Gerda will do anything to save her best friend Kai from the evil Snow Queen. But can she save Arendelle from an eternal winter?  (A Frozen/Snow Queen crossover.)





	1. Prologue - Troll Prophecy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! You can read this story in its entirety on fanfiction.net or chapter by chapter as I share it on AO3!

**Prologue**

_"Your future is bleak.Your kingdom will splinter._  
_Your land shall be cursed with unending winter._  
_With blasts of cold will come dark art_  
_And a ruler with a frozen heart._  
_Then all will perish in snow and ice_  
_Unless you are freed with a sword sacrifice."_

_\- An ancient Troll Prophecy as related to King Alfred II of Arendelle_


	2. Ice Crystals

**Johanna**

The people of Arendelle have a saying: "True love will thaw the frozen heart."

It is supposed to be a cheerful platitude, one that gives comfort to the weary and hope to the unsophisticated masses. Oh, yes, true love. Doesn't it sound so pretty? \

The people recite this clever truism to themselves as they go about their day. As they sweep the snow from their front steps, as they chop their firewood, as they blow out the lone candle on their bedside table and fall asleep with nothing but a tangle of blankets to protect them from the encroaching darkness. All of them know the saying, and yet no one thinks to ask the obvious question.

Maybe the heart is better off frozen.

A crash sounds from somewhere below me, the sound of ice shattering into fragments.

"Kai," I shout. "Idiot boy, come here at once!" Kai appears from behind a wall of iridescent ice. He stares up at me with wide, empty eyes. He doesn't speak. He rarely does, unless I order him to.

"What were you doing back there?"

"Lighting the fire."

"Did you break anything?"

"I knocked over a plate," Kai says dutifully, "but I swept it up."

The incompetence I put up with. "Did you actually light the fire?"

"Yes."

I sweep past him without investigating. Kai is usually trustworthy, and I have every reason to believe he has done as he was told. Besides, I hate being in the same room as fire. I only light it for guests.

There is a pounding at the door. It causes the ice crystals to reverberate in the main hall, and high above me the frozen chandelier begins to sing. I take a moment to enjoy it, the song of the ice echoing through me. I reach a hand to the sky. We are connected, the ice and I. I can feel it weaving between my fingertips, resonating to my core. I squeeze my hand into a fist, crushing the invisible vibrations, and the ice stops singing. I smile. There is something satisfying about killing the song. About how quiet the room suddenly goes.

Kai is still standing there. Silent as the ice crystals.

"The goblin emissaries are here," I say. "Go set the table. Try not to drop anything this time."


	3. Window Boxes

**Gerda**

It has been six months to the day since Kai vanished. I miss him dreadfully.

I am sitting in the window box outside my bedroom, surrounded by a cluster of flowers that spill out of their pots like a billowing green cloud. A little bee bumbles from one daffodil to another. I look away. I do not want to think of bees and their queens. It reminds me of a story Kai's grandmother told us, back when Kai used to listen to his grandmother.

In the corner of my window box sits a rose bush. I look at the place where Kai's rose bush used to sit in the window box across from mine. The empty spot from which Kai tore it is still there, a splotch of dark earth among the green.

For twelve years of my life, Kai lived next door to me. We both lived with our grandmothers— our parents died in the Goblin Wars. Our houses were so close that our balconies touched. In the summer, we could climb out of our windows and play together. Kai and I were not related, but he was in every way my brother.

Then everything changed.

"Gerda?" My own grandmother is at the bedroom door. "Are you alright?"

"Of course, Grandma."

I crawl back into my room. I'm embarrassed to be seen sitting in the place where Kai used to sit. As if I can fill in the space where he isn't.

"Some of your school friends are at the door. They're asking if you'll come out and play."

"Not today," I say. I sit on my bed. Grandma steps inside and wipes her hands on an already flour-covered apron. Grandma is constantly baking, and she always smells of fresh pie dough.

"I know Kai's death has been hard on you," she says. She sits down on the bed next to me. "When I was young, I lost a friend to the river too. During the Great Snow of Queen Elsa's reign." She squeezes my shoulder. "It's never easy, but the memories live on."

"Thanks, Grandma." I embrace her in a tight hug. For a moment, we sit like that, until a burning smell invades the room.  

"Oh!" she gasps. "My pie!" She jumps to her feet, then looks at me like she's not sure she should leave.

"Go save the pie!" I wave her away and giggle despite myself. Grandma leaves. I turn somber again.

Grandma has always been kind to me. Everyone is kind to me now, ever since Kai's death. They say it was a tragedy. They say he got lost in a snow storm, that he wandered onto the river and drowned under the ice. This would not be the first time it has happened, they say.

What would they say if I told them the truth?

That Kai isn't dead.


	4. Mirror of Opposites

**Johanna**

The goblins are little men with pale pointy green ears and wide faces. They bring food and reports on the war. Nothing much to report. The illusion is working, they say, and they are slowly making progress on the war against Arendelle-Ciera. It would go much faster, they add, if I would just grant them an eternal winter.

"I have no reason to provide you with an eternal winter," I say. "I have told you under what conditions it would be granted, and you have yet to fulfill them."

"It is an impossible task," the head goblin mutters.

"Then try harder," I say.

Beside me, Kai is gnawing on a reindeer drumstick. He seems hungry. How often have I been feeding him? I don't have to eat as often as normal people do—the cold sustains me. It is easy to lose track of the eating habits of common folk.

I cut a slice of reindeer with a knife made of pure ice. Everything in my court is made of ice. We dine at a table of ice, eating on plates of ice, using cutlery made of ice. I am something of an artist when it comes to ice. My early attempts were crude and unsophisticated, but now everything I make comes together with a flick of the wrist.

I wish I could lay claim to creating the Ice Palace itself. It is a feat truly worthy of a queen, an elaborate, intricate maze of ice tunnels and ice halls, wide cavernous ballrooms, dazzling in their opalescence, stairways bright as crystal and walls sleek as silver. How I would have been proud to create such a masterpiece!  

But it was not mine. I found it like this. A secret paradise, empty and untouched. A tragedy to neglect something so beautiful. I took it in, I spoke to the ice and promised it companionship, and I made it mine.

The head goblin is babbling on about an illusion, gesticulating animatedly with his little pale green hands. Goblins are proud of their illusions, as if their pretty games of make-believe constitute real magic. Everyone knows that it's their cousins, the trolls, that possess real magical abilities.

"You are boring me," I snap finally. "If it is not relevant, I do not want to hear it."

I have frightened the second goblin. He drops his plate on the floor. It shatters. I sweep my hand across the table and the plate reassembles itself in front of him.

"Perhaps you will find this relevant," says the head goblin. He looks unfazed, and I am impressed by his nonchalance. I do not care much for heavy displays of feeling. "The mages of Arendelle-Ciera are trying to reassemble the Mirror of Opposites and revoke its illusion."

A few years ago, the goblins created a mirror that would show its viewer the opposite of the truth. They shattered it and scattered the pieces, fine as sand, across Arendelle-Ciera. The confusion caused by the pieces is what has allowed them to gain ground in the war. No one can tell what's real anymore. No one knows who is illused and who isn't. It was a clever little trick.

"Revoke the Illusion?" I echo. "Is that possible?"

"Theoretically," he says. "Queen Elsa was collecting the pieces during her lifetime, unbeknownst to us. It seems that the mirror has been half-assembled already. If they find a powerful enough spell and succeed in breaking the illusion, the war is certainly lost for us."

"How tragic." I swivel my finger around the top of a goblet, making the ice sing. "Why should I care?"

"I think you know exactly why."

The goblin smiles. Damn that clever little green man.

"Assuming that such a spell exists," I ask in order to distract him from his minor victory, "is there a mage in Arendelle-Ciera strong enough to perform it?"

"That's questionable," he says. His pointed teeth are showing. "Queen Elsa would be strong enough, certainly."

"Queen Elsa is dead."

"And yet you believe the dead can return."

He is irritating me. Outside, the snow is falling thick and fast. The wind begins to howl. "Under certain conditions."

"Who is to say her death did not fulfill those conditions?"

The wind batters at the crystal walls, causing the ice to screech. My fists uncurl, sending shards of ice flying from my hands. They crash against the wall and embed themselves, protruding from the smooth ice like knives from a freshly killed animal.

"Unless it is pertinent, I do not want to hear another word about my mother." I rise from the table. "This meeting is over."


	5. Red Shoes

**Gerda**

I rise early. I am going to visit the river today.

I tip toe into my grandmother's room and plant a goodbye kiss on her soft cheek. She rolls over in bed but does not wake. I am not sure what I would tell her if she did.

Back in my own room, I open the window and say goodbye to the flowers. I have always been able to speak to flowers. Though it is an uncommon magic, it is one that my grandmother and I share. We can also speak to several birds, though she is far better with birds than I.

Kai used to like to hear me speak in the languages of the flowers. I taught him a little bit of the language of roses. He picked it up pretty well, though his accent was funny. When Kai grew sour, illused by goblin magic, he forgot the roses. He only mocked me for speaking nonsense words.

I lean out the window and inhale the scent of my garden.

'Goodbye,' I whisper to each flower in its own language.

'Goodbye, Gerda,' say the daffodils, the tulips, the sweet peas, and the hyacinths. 'Come back safely to us.'

My roses wish me luck.

'We hope you find your friend,' they say. I can tell they miss their friend too, the rosebush that used to rest across from them in Kai's window box.

'When I return with Kai,' I promise them, 'we will plant a new rose bush where the old one once grew.'

My roses rustle happily. I will miss them most of all.

I close the window all but a crack. Then I pause and look around. If the river has taken Kai, and I ask for him back, it will want something in return. I don't have much. A little bed, a wooden desk, a few dolls on a shelf and my clothes in the wardrobe. I open the wardrobe and pull out a pair of red shoes. The shoes are unscuffed. They shine like ripe cherries. For a moment, I hold them close to my heart. I can still smell the fresh leather. I don't want to give them up.

But I love Kai, and the river will love these shoes.

I set off down the street. I pray that the river has Kai. If he's not dead, and if he's not with the river, then the alternative is much worse.


	6. A Thing With a Name

**Johanna**

We finish what's left of the meal in silence. Only the sound of the storm howling outside. The second goblin glances nervously at the first one. He does not trust me.

Wise of him.

I finish the reindeer on my plate and order Kai to store the rest for later. Reindeer is not a pleasing dish. The meat is course, tough. I expect it was over-cooked, though time and again I have demanded for it to be rare.

When I was a child, my Uncle Kristoff had a pet reindeer. It had a name. Perhaps I am eating a thing with a name. A feeling flutters inside of my chest, like a heartbeat. I silence it. I don't care. Even if the creature had a name, I wouldn't care. Emotions are beneath me. They are tumultuous, messy things, bursting inside of you, exploding like hot magma when you least expect it. It is better to be frozen.

Queen Elsa taught me long ago that emotions are to be embraced. She was wrong. I picture her in the courtyard of Arendelle Castle, her long blond hair falling in a braid down her back. She waves her hand, and the gushing fountains freeze instantly into intricate, lace-like curls. They sparkle like diamonds in the summer sun. I am young. I try to mimic what she did to the fountains, but only a lumpy sheet of ice appears at my feet. Frustrated, I stomp on it, trying to shatter the ugly thing, but it only thickens and spikes. The jagged edges nearly pierce my copper-colored shoes.

She smiles and strokes my hair. "Love will thaw, Johanna."

"I don't love it." I stomp again. A spike shoots up to the sky. "It won't curl like yours."

"Don't give up, Sweetheart. I've had a lot more practice than you, after all. I had to learn the hard way how to love." She laughs, waves her hand. The courtyard becomes an ice rink. "Come on. Call Aunt Anna and we'll practice."

I don't think there's an easy way to learn how to love. It irritates me, to think back on her laughing when I was right all along. Love may thaw the heart, but it could not keep her from foolishly running after my father when she heard he had been killed. Embracing that emotion did not save her. It did not save my father. And it did not save Julian.

I am angry at the goblins for bringing her up in the first place and causing me to remember things that have no place in my life anymore. I raise the wind. A window at the far end of the hall flies open. The second goblin lets out a nervous yelp. I smile.

Kai appears at my side. He has moved the reindeer meat to a crystalline ice box where I keep all of the food the goblins bring me. Kai has done well.

"Go warm yourself by the fire," I say. He sits in front of the fireplace and warms his hands on the dying embers. The goblins take that as their cue to leave. They put on their black coats, button the brass buttons, wrap thick black scarves around their ridiculous ears.

The Head Goblin stops at the door and offers a little bow. "Your Majesty. We will return if there is any more to report."

"Very well."

"In the meantime, you might consider, ah, the possibility of an eternal winter. I know you have suggested otherwise, but …"

He prattles on. They know the conditions under which I would consider exerting the effort. To suggest otherwise is sheer impudence.

"You might consider shutting your mouth," I say. I raise my hand, and the door slams in his face. An icy lock curls around the handles, locking him out. The curls blossom outward, like a flower. I touch the blossom. My chest flutters again.

I squeeze my fist, and the blossom shatters


	7. River

**Gerda**

The river is cold between my toes. I clutch my red shoes tightly in one hand as I wade into the ankle-deep water. Tall grasses rustle at my feet and cling to my legs.

This river flows north for miles and miles, emptying finally into the fjord of Arendelle. Grandmother tells me that Arendelle-Ciera wasn't always one kingdom. A few years before I was born, our King Frederick of Ciera married Queen Elsa of Arendelle, and the kingdoms merged into one. Now we live in one big kingdom that stretches the length of the river.

The water is up to my knees. I shiver as the cold water rushes past me, but I press on. If Kai has been here, the river will certainly know.

I hold my shoes into the air.

"River," I say. "I bring you my red shoes, never worn. They were a gift from my father before he left to fight in the Goblin Wars." There is a lump in my throat. "I will give you these shoes in exchange for Kai. Please bring him back safe."

I mean to toss the shoes far, far into the middle of the river and watch them sink out of sight, but they slip from my hands. The tide pulls them back into shore.

Frustrated, I gather my skirts and wade back to shore. I pick up the shoes, shining still, but now sopping wet. I am not sure I have the strength to throw them again.

A little boat is moored to a dock not far from me. It is the perfect size for a twelve-year-old girl. I scamper over to the boat and climb in. I can take the boat out to the middle of the river and drop the shoes straight down, where no tide will catch them. Then I can paddle back to shore.

I lift the heavy rope that is holding the boat to the dock. Almost immediately, the current pulls me to the deepest part of the river. Once more, I lift my shoes.

"River," I say, "I ask only for Kai's safety." I drop the shoes. They hit the cold water with a splash. Droplets of water land on my skirt. I am satisfied. I have done all that the river could ask of me. Now all that is left is to paddle back to shore.

The boat has no oars.

I search under the seats, but the boat is so little. There is nowhere for oars to be hiding. I begin to rock the boat back and forth, hoping to use my weight to nudge it towards shore.

"River!" I shout. "River, let me go! I need to go home!"

The river does not hear me. If it hears, it does nothing.

A swallow flutters by in the trees overhead. It was a swallow who first told me that Kai had not died, who swore that he had been watching the river that day and Kai had been nowhere near it. I am usually good with swallows. I speak their language better than that of most birds.

'Swallow!' I call. 'Please help!'

This swallow is a stranger though. He does not take notice of me.

The wooden dock grows smaller and smaller at my back. The last thing I see before it falls out of view is the wink of red shoes, which have settled back onto the shore. I shout in frustration.

How will I save Kai now?


	8. Whirlwinds

**Johanna**

The goblins have gone. Good riddance. They are boring creatures and tedious conversationalists.

I sit on the throne in the upper hall, where the balcony looks out over the Northern Mountains. Their frozen peaks glisten even in the grey light of the storm. Outside, the wind screeches. The snow twists into a series of angry whirlwinds. I close my eyes, reach out with my mind, and send it spinning faster and faster. It's a game I play with myself. See how fast I can make it go!

I squeeze the liquid crystals into balls of ice and turn them loose. Hail the size of a tightly clenched fist breaks free of the whirlwind and spirals out into the night.

I can feel the place where the goblins are moving down the mountains. They form shapes that the snow beats against but cannot move through. I slow the wind in that area so that they can journey safely. I dislike them, but I want them alive.

Kai sits at my feet. The storm is too much for him. He shivers. I touch his forehead, and he stops.

I have grown fond of Kai. I did not expect to. I thought I might keep him for a week, maybe send him to the goblins after that. They are always looking for illused children to use as spies.

I came across him twice, quite by chance. The first time he ran, frightened. The second time I took him with me, though that was his own fault. The foolish boy had chained his little sled to mine as part of some game the village children played. I might have cut him loose, let him die alone in a frozen valley somewhere. Instead I brought him to my Ice Palace and let him stay. I can be charitable when the mood strikes me.

I could see immediately that Kai was illused by goblin magic. To ordinary folk, they say, shards of the Mirror of Opposites are indistinguishable from rain or snow. I cannot imagine how that can be. To those of us who can feel the snow— I say 'those of us' as though I am not the only one—the shards are obviously something other than ice. They feel all wrong. Wrong size, wrong texture, wrong flavor. Kai had a shard embedded deep in his heart.

Perhaps that is why he grew on me.

He is a clever little boy. He is silent until I call on him to speak, but then his thoughts come pouring out, spiraling around the room like a blizzard. He makes me laugh. That is a rare thing.

Sometimes, in my weaker moments, I think that if Julian and I had a son, he would have been like Kai.

It is pointless to think of Julian.

I raise a hand, and the wind slows. I reach deep, deep down the snow-covered mountains to where the goblins trek. I've changed my mind. I don't care anymore whether they live. I uncurl my fist, and a blast of icy wind slams into the little men. Their shapes slip and tumble down the hill. I laugh.

Kai, who cannot see what I see, laughs too.

"What are you laughing at?" I snap.

"Nothing." He averts his eyes.

The goblins lie still in the snow for a few minutes. Eventually, they climb to their feet and continue their journey.


	9. Journey

**Gerda**

The river takes me far north, much further than I have ever gone. We sweep quickly through the town, which is still shaking off sleep on this quiet summer morning. I try to call out, but the few people I see are too far away to hear me.

Before long, the town is gone from view. On the riverbanks, milk cows meander across pastures, lazily chewing their cuds. Sheep fill the air with their sorrowful bleating. Once, I see a brown mare sipping from the river, the shallow water beating ripples against her front hooves. She lifts her proud head and looks directly at me. Such a beautiful horse! I ache to reach out and bury my hands in her soft mane. But she, like everything else, gradually fades behind me. Even the farms grow sparse.

I have entered the uninhabited countryside that separates the two kingdoms. I catch glimpses of the dusty, broken road in between the woods and hills that roll around me.

Grandma says that when King Frederick and Queen Elsa ruled together, they built a road along the river so that travelers could move easily between Arendelle and Ciera. Once it was a busy, well-protected trade route. But it has since fallen into disrepair. Today it is mostly empty except for highwaymen and a few brave caravans.

There is not a caravan in sight. I pray no highwaymen find me.

Having given up on escaping the current, I lay down on the dry bottom of the boat and watch the sky. I am thinking of Kai, of summer days when we used to rest on the hillside, the long grass tickling our feet, looking for shapes in the clouds. Half the time I never noticed shapes until he pointed them out. He was always cleverer than me, even before the goblins illused him. Maybe that's why so few people noticed that he had been illused.

"Kai is just growing up," they told me. They were wrong. My Kai would never make me feel stupid. Kai cared about me. Growing up couldn't change that.

In the winter, when the skies grew dark and the clouds held only angry shapes, we would stay inside and my grandmother would make us cookies. Or we would visit his grandmother, who would sit us down by the fire and tell us stories. It was from her that we first heard about the Snow Queen and the Goblin Wars.

It started with the ancient troll prophecy, she said. Long ago, the trolls warned that a ruler with a frozen heart would bring about unending winter and destroy the kingdom. Everyone thought at first that it would be Queen Elsa, especially after she caused the Great Snow in the first days of her reign. But once she learned to control her magic, Queen Elsa was a kind and generous ruler. When her daughter, Princess Johanna, was born with the same power, everyone had been prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She betrayed them. She betrayed us.

The Goblin Wars have been going on for most of my life. No one expected the goblins to pose a real threat, but then a crafty old goblin created the Mirror of Opposites. The shattered pieces mixed in with the snow and the rain, and anyone who was caught in a storm could easily be infected. The shards sowed confusion and mistrust among neighbors. No one can tell who's illused. Except Queen Elsa, but she's dead now.

Queen Johanna might be able to tell, but she won't help us. She sits in the North Mountain and casts heavy snows over Arendelle-Ciera, stirring up pieces of the illusion and making it worse. Occasionally she comes down in a sleigh made of ice and rides through the streets, as if to remind us that Arendelle-Ciera is still her kingdom. A kingdom of ice and snow for an evil snow queen.

The boat has stopped. I sit up. The river has taken me to land. I clamber onto the sandy shore and kiss the earth, I am so grateful to be on solid ground.

In front of me a cottage sits, cozily nestled in the midst of a valley. The cottage is beautiful, trimmed in blue and white like icing on a Christmas cookie. In the distance, an orchard of some kind spreads across the land. What stuns me, though, is the garden. I have never seen flowers bloom so beautifully.

Summers have been colder since Queen Johanna took the throne. The eternal winter of the troll prophecy has not yet come to pass, but the flowers tell me that it used to be so much warmer. The sun used to be stronger, they say, feeding them with its heat and strength. They would bloom brighter, colors splashing across every garden, filling the world with their sweet fragrance. Often flowers say they're sorry that I could not see them in their full glory.

I have wondered what such a garden would look like. Now I imagine it would look something like this one.

A grey stone path leads to the cottage door. At the foot of this path I spy a rose bush. Yellow roses blossom, round and bright like the incandescent sun. The roses sing a joyful greeting to me, and my heart swells with hope. Perhaps it means nothing, and yet I can't stop hoping that it means something.

Perhaps the river has brought me to Kai after all.


	10. A City in a Snow Globe

**Johanna**

I stand knee-deep in mountain snow. My shoulders are wrapped in a white fur cloak, my feet laced in boots of ice, but the outfit is more for show than anything. The cold has never bothered me.

The sun is setting over Arendelle, gold and lavender sinking into dark violet and blue. During the summer, Arendelle glows in the soft evening light. It is picturesque, like a city in a snow globe just waiting for the ice to cover everything. I think of calling in a snowfall but decide against it. Let the people have their lukewarm summer. It is easier to call in a snowfall during the winter, when the winds are already moving in my favor.

When I was a child, King Frederick gave Queen Elsa a snow globe he'd bought in France. It was a stupid thing. The snow inside wasn't real. It felt dead. Anyone could tell that it was just bits of porcelain.

Queen Elsa loved it.

"Why do you like this stupid thing?" I said. I tried to move the fake snow, but it wouldn't obey me.

"Because it's a gift, Jo," she said.

"It's fake."

"It's only a symbol." She smiled. "It was given in love, and so it's dear to me."

"Hmmph." I made frost appear on the window pane.

She rustled my hair, pale blond and plaited like hers. "Would you like a real one?"

I nodded.

Queen Elsa thought for a moment. Then she pressed her hands together. When she separated them, a ball of pure ice balanced on her open palm. It was rough and chipped.

"Blow on it," she said. I blew. The ball of ice became smooth, clear, and hollow. Inside glittered a tiny carved city made of ice. The city was covered in snow—real snow! Queen Elsa twirled a gold-ringed finger, and a base appeared beneath the orb. She set it on the windowsill.

"Do you like it?" she said.

I ordered the snow to move. It rose inside the globe and swirled around and around. My own tiny blizzard.

"I love it," I said. I let the snow settle. For years I kept the snow globe at my bedside.

When Julian left, I shattered it. I shattered everything.

The goblins have journeyed beyond the North Mountains. I can't sense them anymore. The range of what I can feel is limited to only a few miles. I can send storms much further, but I can't control them. Queen Elsa had a much further range. She was not better than me, of course, only more experienced. Except in one thing.

For all of my talents, I cannot make a snow globe.


	11. Garden

**Gerda**

A woman answers the cottage door when I knock. She is about my grandmother's age, wearing a broad hat and gardening gloves. Her silver hair is tied back in a long braid. She smiles. I like her immediately. She looks kind, if a little sad.

"Is Kai here?" I say, breathless.

"Who?"

"My friend Kai. He's my age. He has brown eyes like me, and brown hair."

"Oh sweetheart," she laughs. "You're the first visitor I've had in years."

The hope drains out of me. I have been on the river for half a day, with no food, no water, the summer sun beating down on me. All for what? I begin to cry. Tears run down my cheeks and splash against the warm brown earth at my bare feet. The woman looks stricken.

"Don't cry, sweetheart! It's not as bad as all that." She opens the door. "Come inside. We'll get you fed and cleaned up. It will be alright."

Inside, the house is cool and dry. She fixes sandwiches for both of us and pours me a cup of goat's milk. Over supper I tell her everything, how Kai and I grew up together, how he was struck by a goblin's illusion, and no one would believe me that he was alive, and it's up to me to find him. I start to tell her what I think really happened to Kai, and the tears begin to fall again.

"I'm s-sorry," I stammer. I wipe my nose on my sleeve. "I d-don't mean to cry so much."

She smiles understandingly and strokes my hair.

"It's alright. You're afraid. We're all afraid sometimes. Can I give you a piece of advice my father gave to me when I was your age?"

I sniffle and nod.

"Conceal it, don't feel it. Don't let it show."

I wrinkle my nose. "'Conceal it, don't feel it.' What does that mean?"

"It means you can hide your feelings from others. Then you stop feeling them yourself." She pats my hand. "Imagine you're taking all those messy fears, shoving them into a bottle, and sticking a cork in the top. No one can see inside the bottle. There may be a storm raging under the glass, but all people see is the calm on the outside."

"I don't think I can ever stop missing Kai. Even if I try to hide it, the sadness is still there. How can I conceal that?"

"You can learn," she says. "It just takes practice." She stands up, goes to the cupboard. When she returns, she is holding a bowl of cherries. Bright red and ripe, like the color of my shoes.

"I was going to use these to make a pie," she says, "but I think we should eat them for dessert, don't you?"

I nod eagerly, but I wait until she plucks a cherry from the bowl and puts it to her lips before I take one too. I plop it into my mouth and bite down. It is so perfectly ripe, exploding with flavor, the right combination of tangy and sweet. Elated, I reach for another.

"You're very brave, going after your friend," the woman says. She rolls a ruby-red cherry between her gloved fingers before taking a bite out of it. "You remind me of my sister. When I was young, I ran away from home. Like you, she ran after me and brought me back. I owe her my life."

"What's your sister's name?" I ask.

She blinks a few times. "I don't remember." For a moment, she seems upset, like she's reaching for the memory but not finding it. Then she laughs. "Well. The things you forget when you get old."

I frown. How do you forget the name of the sister that saved your life?

I shrug it off and pop another cherry into my mouth. It is even better than the first one.

On second thought, it's not that odd, her poor memory. I've already forgotten the name of the person I've come here to find. I'm sure I'll remember in a minute.

Together, we polish off all of the cherries in the bowl. I'm sorry when they're gone. I have never tasted anything so delicious.

The woman sets the bowl aside. "I suppose you'll want to get going," she says.

"Why?" I say.

"I thought…" She looks at me, then down at the empty bowl, and back to me. "Didn't you say you had somewhere to be?"

I think hard. I can't imagine where else I would go when everything I want is right here.

"I think you're mistaken," I say politely.

"Well then. You may stay as long as you like."

That sounds wonderful. "Can I stay forever?"

"I suppose. I've always wanted a child to share my garden with," she muses. She holds out a gloved hand. "Come on, let's go outside and wash this bowl out in the hand pump."

I take the woman's hand and carry the bowl down the lane to the pump. The garden is beautiful, the yard bursting with color. I cannot wait to explore it.

I do go exploring later in the day. I greet all of the flowers in their own languages, and they say hello back. There is only one spot in the yard where nothing is growing: a grey patch of dirt at the foot of the stone path sits cold and empty. I reach down and touch the cold earth, puzzled. It seems as though something grew there earlier today, something important.

It's just I can't quite remember what.


	12. Echoes

**Johanna**

"Your Majesty," Kai whines. I slam my fork against the table, accidentally smashing a dent in the icy surface. We are eating leftover reindeer, and that already has me in a foul mood. Next time I see those goblins, I'll order them to bring me something other than tough, flavorless meat.

"Don't whine," I say. "You know how I hate it when children whine."

Kai clears his throat. "Your Majesty," he says. His voice is timid, but at least he is not whining.

"Better. Now what it is?"

"May I go? I need to find Gerda."

Not this again.

"Who's Gerda?" I ask him.

He looks at me blankly. He doesn't know. Neither do I. The question is an echo, a memory of someone he loved before he was illused. I can't fault Kai for this. Memories happen to the best of us.

I let my gaze drift to the fork I am holding, twirling it slowly, thoughtfully, in my fingers. Patterns of color dance and shift as it catches the light from different angles. Kai sits quietly, waiting for my response.

It is easy enough to distract Kai from his memories. I usually assign him an impossible task with the instructions to complete it before he goes. Once, I told him to find and pluck a real, live flower from the ice garden. Another time I ordered him to bring me the brightest snowflake on the North Mountain. After an hour or so of trying, he will forget why he wanted to leave in the first place.

I set my fork down. Its clinks gently against the table, the sound of ice against ice.

"First you must count every triangle that appears in my palace," I say. "Then you may go."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Kai leaps to his feet and runs out of the dining room. I continue my meal. The walls are covered in geometric shapes that repeat, blend, and shift in the changing light. There must be millions of triangles. Even I do not know the number. In about an hour I'll find Kai and tell him he can stop.

There is still a dent in the table where I slammed my fork only moments ago. I point a finger. A tiny jet of ice shoots out of my fingertip and fills in the gap.

When I run my hand over the table, it is smooth and even. The flat surface gleams up at me, unbroken. As if nothing had ever been remiss.


End file.
